


May We Meet Again

by greengrlelphie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:40:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23504749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greengrlelphie/pseuds/greengrlelphie
Summary: After Hope stabbed Octavia, what happened in The Anomaly? This is my version of what happened.
Relationships: Octavia Blake/Lincoln, octavia blake - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	May We Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

> We're all on lock down. Might as well write out everything your head cannon tells you, right? Right. Enjoy!

Was she dead? 

The pain of Hope stabbing her was comparable to when Echo slammed her sword through Octavia’s side and pushed her off a cliff. But...she didn’t feel dead. In fact, she felt whole. She checked herself over and saw no injuries. Not even a blood stain on her clothing. Something about this felt familiar as she looked around. Then she realized it. The room was her own, on the Ark, where she had grown up with her mother and Bellamy. Everything was just as she remembered it as she ran her fingers over the metal of the table and chairs. She used to jump from the table to the chairs and to the bed and back. A game she loved as a child and Bellamy hated. Yet he still let her play because he knew that she had such a limited life in comparison to his.

“You’ve grown so much,” a voice said from behind her. A voice she knew. 

“Mom?” she asked, tears springing to her eyes. 

Octavia turned to see her mother, standing right in front of her. Someone she had not seen since she was a teenager and had never been given the chance to say goodbye to. There was no hesitation as Octavia closed the distance between them and hugged her mother tightly. Her body was warm and real.

“How are you here? Am I dead?” She had so many questions. 

“No...you’re not dead, sweetheart. This is a gift.” Her mother kissed her head and sat down. 

Octavia sat opposite of her mom and looked at her. She looked no different than the day she had last seen her, before they were both arrested her mother had been floated. 

“I’m so proud of you, Octavia,” her mother said after a moment of silence had passed between them. “You have grown up to be a brave young woman and have faced so many challenges.”

“I didn’t always do the right thing, Mom...I hurt a lot of people and did a lot of things that were wrong,” she said, remembering how difficult things were in the bunker. A lot of decisions that were made were impossible and even more troublesome for her, given how young she was and how inexperienced she had been at leading. She had even admitted as much to Jaha that she was never a leader. Just a warrior. 

“You did not have easy decisions to make. You did what you thought was fair and right given the circumstances that you were put into at such a young age. Responsibilities that no one your age should have had to take. The same responsibilities that I put on your brother unfairly when you were born. His sister, his responsibility. Your people, your responsibility.”

The burden of leading a people that at one point, were thirteen separate clans that hated one another, was not one that she would have chosen. She wasn't Clarke or Bellamy. And she was not the Commander. Lexa had been the Commander who united the clans, something never before done, but she was no Commander. She was just Octavia Blake, the girl under the floor, who had fought in the Conclave for everyone. Not just herself or Skaikru. In the bunker, there were too many people and not enough resources. Tensions were high and justice was difficult to come by fairly because there were no laws. No one had prepared for what they were about to live through. And she drew on the only thing she had available to her...the stories her big brother had told her about Rome and the gladiators. It turned into a fair system. As fair as they could be, given the circumstances that they were living in. 

“Why did you have me?” She had known from the moment she could understand that she should have never been born, according to the laws of the Ark.

“Because...by the time I knew that I was pregnant, I could feel you kicking,” her mother replied. “I knew you were a person and I couldn’t...I couldn’t just let them kill you. It was a selfish decision that I made that put your life and your brother’s in danger constantly.”

Octavia remembered every single inspection that she had gone through, hiding underneath the floor, terrified that they would find her. Every time, she and Bellamy were reminded by their mother what would happen if she had been caught and it was a fear that Octavia lived every day of her life on the Ark. Her mom and brother had reminded her each time that in order to slay the demon of fear, she had to repeat “I am not afraid”. It was what got her through each time under the floor. 

“I’m sorry...that Bellamy and I were caught that day,” she said. “That you died because of me.”

“No, I didn’t die because of you,” her mother corrected. “I died because of my own actions. But I don’t regret giving you life for one minute, Octavia. You and Bellamy were the best things I ever did during my life and I know that giving my life for yours was a decision that I would do again. I love you and your brother more than anything in the world.”

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as she looked at her mother. “I miss you.”

“I’ll always be with you. Whenever you’re afraid or when you need me, I’ll always be here,” she replied, pointing to Octavia’s heart. “I love you, Octavia.”

“I love you too, Mom,” she said, moving over to hug her mother one more time. 

As she closed her eyes, she felt her mother disappear in her arms in a gust of wind. Tears stung her eyes as she let herself mourn for a moment before opening her eyes again. The room was cold with a familiar table and chair with blueprints laid out in front of her. It was the bunker. A hell she never wanted to set foot into again as long as she lived.

“Why am I here?” she asked. She had already been here once before. Blodreina was no more, so she did not understand why she was brought back to a place that had caused her so much pain.

“Because your heart needs you to be.” Abby Griffin’s voice stated, stepping out of the shadows with Kane at her side.

“I’m not here for you two,” she replied. “You both called me a monster when you both played a part in making me that monster.”

“You gave into a darkness, Octavia,” Kane said. “After Lincoln died…”

“Don’t you dare talk about him,” she warned. “You were fine to use my darkness and pain whenever it suited your needs like at the Conclave, but you abandoned me the moment it didn’t suit you anymore. When I actually needed guidance and support, no one was there.”

“You killed your own people,” he countered. “Made us into animals.”

“What choice did we have, Kane? I asked for help. I asked for any other way...there were no options,” she said. “Our people were going to die.”

“I know, but you took away their choice. You made them eat their family, their friends.”

“Abby told me to or else they were going to die, slowly, and painfully. She was a doctor and that was the only option...I did it because I had to,” she said. “I bore it, so they wouldn’t have to. I didn’t want to be the person that it made me into.”

“And we should have been there...should have been supporting you and helping you,” Abby admitted. “When the world went to hell, we all had someone to lean on. But you had no one. I told you that Marcus was the key and then let you take the blame. I should have been there to help you.”

The admission caught Octavia by surprise. Abby and Kane had spent years blaming her for what went wrong in the bunker, omitting the part that they had played. Octavia was well aware of her sins, much like the sins of Clarke and Bellamy, in the name of their people. She had done the things she had for Wonkru, sacrificing her own innocence and humanity. But neither Abby or Kane had openly admitted to anyone the part that they had played in creating Blodreina and the brutality of the Dark Year.

“No one saw the pain and the loneliness that you went through, Octavia, and that was never fair to you,” Kane added after a moment. “Before Lincoln turned himself in, he made me promise to take care of you. I failed.”

Octavia had to take a deep breath to settle herself as she felt more tears. Remembering the day that she lost the love of her life was not easy. She had told him she would fight with him. That they would fight together because she was not going to let him go alone. It had broken everything inside of her to watch him die.

“He loved you, Octavia, and needed you to live because he knew how special you were,” Kane continued. “And he was right. You united thirteen clans under one roof and did the best that you could given the circumstances that you were handed at such a young age. We all did things that made us lose our humanity during those six years. And you are as deserving of forgiveness as anyone.”

“Blodreina is no more,” she said quietly. “I killed her.”

When she had faced herself in the Anomaly last, Octavia had put an end to the person that she had become during the years in the bunker. The girl who had steeled herself with so much loss, pain, and fear was replaced with a version of the girl she once was when she first came to Earth. A wiser version of that girl, who had seen the horrors of war and the pain of death.

“We know...and I see the girl I met on the ground,” Abby said. “The one that had hope and life. You deserve a second chance to live and to have a life.”

“I forgive you...both of you,” she replied. Holding onto anger was not going to serve her anymore. It had kept her going for a long time, but that was not a life that she could life anymore. Not if she wanted to find peace and if she wanted redemption.

“Will you look after Clarke and Madi, for me?” Abby asked. 

Octavia nodded.

“Tell Clarke that I love her.”

“I will...take care of our people who have gone on. And tell Jaha...he was right.”

Abby reached across the table with Kane and they took Octavia’s hand. A moment of solidarity and forgiveness unspoken between them. Forgiveness was not easy for Octavia, given all of the horrors she had suffered in her short life. But she knew that she could not hang on to the pain of the past forever if she wanted to have a chance for a future. 

Octavia closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The light of the room was gone as she felt it replaced by the warmth of a fire. A familiar smell filled her senses as she opened her eyes and realized where she was. Lincoln’s cave. The fire was roaring nearby and she could smell the moss growing on the rock and the dirt on the ground. It was a place she had not seen in so long, but it brought her right back to the earliest days of her relationship with Lincoln. Looking around, she saw the flowers in the corner and smiled. He used to leave them along a path for her to follow. They were always sweet smelling and delicate, unlike anything Octavia had ever seen before in her life. A stark contrast to the life she had in space. She walked over to the furs and sat down, running her fingers over them as she remembered countless hours spent laying on them with Lincoln, talking about her childhood and his, planning a future. 

“I wondered how long it would take you to find me,” a deep voice said from the doorway, breaking the trance Octavia had found herself in.

Octavia hesitated in opening her eyes, fearing that it might be a dream. But when she did, she saw him standing there. He was wearing a t-shirt, his tattoos poking out as they always did. And she could see the stubble of his beard in the shadows of the firelight. 

“I was afraid that I would open my eyes and you wouldn’t be there,” she said, blinking away the tears that had formed. 

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he reassured her. 

Standing up, she ran to him and buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around him. His strong arms embraced her and she felt a kiss to her head. Lifting her head up, she kissed him. Her heart was racing and she was trembling, but she didn’t care. Lincoln’s scent had not changed at all and she found herself relaxing far more than she had in years. Memories of all the nights she spent with him flashed through her mind. All of their laughter and pain, together, were images in her mind’s eye. 

“I’ve been so lost without you,” she admitted when she broke their kiss and looked at him. “A part of me died the day that you did”

“I know,” he replied softly. “And I’m so sorry that I left you. I couldn’t let you walk that path with me...not when I knew how special you were and how much life you had to live.”

“We were supposed to live that together. We were supposed to get married and live the rest of our lives together.”

“I wanted to,” he said. “I wanted to build a cabin and settle somewhere with you. But that wasn’t what our people needed then. They needed you to unite them, like Lexa started. To survive.”

“I still needed you. I needed my home.”

Lincoln had been the only home that Octavia had ever had that felt real. Skaikru and Trikru really had never accepted her as their own, but Lincoln had. He never questioned how she was born or who she had been on the Ark. Instead, he saw the person she had been within and built on that strength to make her who she was now. Without him, she had felt like a compass without a true north to guide her. It brought her to the depths of hell and forged her into Skairipa, an assassin that felt no pain. But from that, she became Osleya. The Conclave had allowed her to save humanity in some way, in honor of Lincoln and Lexa’s sacrifices.

“Do you remember when I told you that Trikru was in here?” he asked, pointing to her heart. 

She nodded. 

“That’s where I am too. I’ve always been there, with you, even when you can’t feel me. And I will never leave you, Octavia.”

“I love you, Lincoln,” she said. “I never got to say it to you, but I always felt it.”

“I knew,” he replied, smiling. “You always showed me that you loved me with your actions more than your words.”

“Losing you...was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was like my humanity left when you died and I couldn’t find it, no matter how hard I tried. When they announced the Conclave, I fought because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t realize that I was doing it for everyone until after it was over and I had the power to be fair about who was allowed to have the bunker. I wanted to be like you.”

“You brought people together and united them in a time of crisis and despair.”

“I also lost myself to darkness with the choices that had to be made...to bear the burden of it so our people didn’t have to,” she whispered. 

“But you don’t have to anymore,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You are allowed to heal. To be human and to move forward with your life like everyone else.”

“How do I do that?”

The weight of the world had been put on her shoulders after facing so much loss and death. She had only started to unpack everything and to begin to heal, which would take a long time, but she did not know how to do it alone. Doing things alone had never worked out for Octavia. 

“You forgive yourself. And then you forgive others,” he said, cupping her cheeks as he looked in her eyes.

“How do I live a life without you?” She swallowed thickly as she fought back more tears. Octavia had not let herself think of that. Her thoughts had been occupied by Praimfiya and then surviving in the bunker followed by getting to the valley. She had not had time to stop and think about a future for herself.

“You are allowed to love again. To fall in love and be loved by someone else. Don’t be afraid to let someone else into your heart, Octavia,” Lincoln said. “I was lucky to spend the rest of my life with you. And when the time is right, another will come to heal your heart...you’ll know I sent them.”

Nodding, she felt the warm tears streaming down her face as she leaned up and kissed him. Her hands moved to cradle his face as her lips pressed to his. It was a kiss she knew all too well and could spend eternity in. But she knew that she couldn’t. When they parted, she rested her forehead to his. The day that Lincoln died, she did not get to say goodbye. Now she knew why she was here and why she had been given this moment with him.

“May we meet again,” she whispered, lacing her fingers with his. 

“May we meet again,” he said back. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she replied.

The room went quiet as she knew she was alone now. When she gathered herself, she knew what she had to do now. Save Diyoza and get the hell back to Sanctum to live her life.


End file.
